How to Live Meditatively: Bringing the Qualities of Meditation Into Everyday Life

A sitting steadies the mind, and the rest of the day shows how long the steadiness lasts. To live meditatively is to carry the qualities of meditation, awareness, relaxation, love, gratitude and stillness into the meeting, the commute, the kitchen and the conversation with a difficult person. The practice stays the same everywhere: remain within, and let the outer day pass by. That is how meditation in daily life stops being an hour on a cushion and becomes the way the whole day is lived.

What Does It Mean to Live Meditatively?

Meditation is a way of living, so meditative living asks for no retreat from society and is never a technique to be taken up and then put aside. The job, the family and the routine stay as they were, and each of them receives a different quality. The daily sitting builds the composure, and the ordinary hours are where it is kept. When a meeting or a conversation unsettles the mind, sit again on the same day and restore the balance, the way an unwell body is given medicine and rest.

How Can Awareness Stay on Through the Day?

Meditation in daily life is not limited to closed eyes. Watch the mind with the eyes open, and notice how far it travels when it turns positive and how far it falls when it turns negative, since a mind that is known can be crossed. While moving among people, keep at least thirty to forty percent of the awareness resting on oneself, and no remark from outside can pull the whole being away. Routine tasks offer the same chance: while driving, learnt habits steer the vehicle, so watch the body drive as a spectator watches a film.

Watch mood swings as they happen, because a person caught in one acts unconsciously, and the watching alone loosens a negative swing. Notice the gaps as well, the pause between two breaths and between sleep and waking. The mind stops in a gap, and a moment of the real Self shows.

How Can Calm Hold in the Middle of a Crowd?

Stillness comes easily in a forest, and how to stay calm in daily life is tested amid noise. As HH Guruji Sundar puts it, "It is easier to be calm in a jungle. But it is very difficult to stay calm in the middle of pandemonium all around." Meet every obstacle with more meditation, because each one turns the practitioner inward and shows how steady the practice has become.

Do not step outside oneself to push a point. Speak from within, hear people out and move on, since the mind is coloured by whatever it holds, and a mind that joins every argument and rumour is coloured by them. The mind also clings to the one wrong done over a hundred kindnesses, so think well of others and speak well of them, and the mind becomes an obedient companion.

How Can Love Be Carried Into Daily Activities?

Love opens every key of meditation, and a sitting without it turns mechanical. To bring meditation into daily life, extend the love of the sitting to every other activity. Use the mind at the office, in the market and wherever work needs thought, and set it down with parents, spouse and children, who are only yearning for affection. Give it freely, because the heart moves into the unknown without clinging or questioning, while the mind keeps itself alive by holding on.

How Does Gratitude Change an Ordinary Day?

Thankfulness is the essential attribute of meditation, and it makes a person humble and open to love. Before the sitting, thank forefathers, God and the Ishta Devata. Throughout the day, thank existence, the womb in which every breath is drawn, and keep thoughts and habits from polluting it. Eating with total awareness and thanks to the food itself turns a meal into a meditation.

How Does Expecting Nothing Help?

Meditation flowers when nothing is demanded of it, and a day lived meditatively opens in the same way. Drop the goal and any expectation, because the wish for a result becomes the very hindrance. Act out of the present moment instead of preparing every reply beforehand, since a person who walks in unprepared is wholly available for existence to unfold.

What Do Others Notice?

The change from meditation shows in behaviour and attitude, and family, friends and relatives are the first to see it. A lamp lights the faces nearest to it, and the closest circle receives the benefit first. Begin there, and let the light spread outward.

Key Takeaway

Meditative living means carrying the qualities of the sitting into the day: awareness kept on with the eyes open, mood swings and gaps watched as they come, calm held amid noise, love brought to every activity, gratitude to existence, no expectation and a readiness to act from the present moment. The daily sitting builds the composure, and a sitting repeated on the same day restores it when people or events disturb it. Family, friends and relatives are the first to notice the change in behaviour and attitude.

FAQs

What does it mean to live meditatively? It means carrying awareness, relaxation, love, gratitude and stillness out of the sitting and into work, family and every ordinary hour, with no retreat from society.

Does living meditatively replace the daily sitting? No. The daily sitting builds the composure that the rest of the day keeps, and a second sitting on the same day restores the balance after a disturbing meeting or conversation.

How can awareness be kept on while talking to people? Keep thirty to forty percent of the awareness resting on oneself while moving among others, and speak from within instead of stepping outside to push a point.

What should be done when a bad mood takes over? Watch the mood while it lasts, because a person caught in a mood swing acts unconsciously, and watching alone loosens it. Sit again on the same day to bring the balance back.

How can family life become meditative? Bring love to it, and set the thinking mind down with parents, spouse and children, who are only yearning for affection. The heart gives without clinging.

Can meditation happen with open eyes? Yes. Watching the mind with the eyes open, and noticing how far it travels when positive or negative, is part of meditation and is the way to cross the mind.